


home.

by partial



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: AU where they lost the Big Game and Jack has to come to terms w failure, Cheese. Cheese all around, Getting Together, M/M, Well I mean it might not be an AU but who knows bc Ngozi hasn't updated yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-24
Updated: 2015-04-24
Packaged: 2018-03-25 11:46:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3809203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/partial/pseuds/partial
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They lose the Big Game. Bittle forces Jack to face the idea of "failure". They come to understand it and each other in a new way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home.

**Author's Note:**

> LOL so if you're reading this from the way future or Ngozi/Bittle (twitter) updates right after I post this this would be awkward bc right now the fandom is facing that ultimate question of WHAT IS GOING ON bc we don't know whether Samwell won or lost and the only tweet Bittle sent after was "home." so basically this fanfic is inspired by this tweet (https://twitter.com/omgcheckplease/status/587422566072979456). I like the idea of a melancholy, bittersweet failure.

His alarm goes off at six o’clock sharp. A groan, unsticking himself from the sweat of last night’s sheets, and then jolting awake when Bitty realizes that he has morning practice—oh.

            Oh.

            There is shifting next to him as he turns off the alarm and resettles back into bed.

            Oh.

            It is off season now. There is no practice. The season is over, after that game. _The game._

_It was 2-2, three minutes left on the clock. Bitty stole a look at Jack, who was performing some aggressive maneuvers. There was barely time to think—only bright lights, bright ice, the screaming of the spectators and the adrenaline that pumped through him._

   Even as Bitty closes his eyes to replay the scene again, an arm finds its way around him and squeezes him close.

_It was too close. They weren’t going to make it. Suddenly, the other team closed in. It was all ice, all lights, all blinding and soon and loud and he was rushing to the defensive but it was too late. One minute left, and suddenly Chowder had put his hands in his head and the other team had gone loud. The loudness wasn’t for them anymore. Zero seconds._

            “Good morning,” Bitty whispers, wondering whether he is awake. Everything seems surreal, and he doesn’t know whether his memory is reality and whether this is a dream.

            The thing about failure is that it is a lot like success, in its own right. There was something surreal about failure too, something dreamlike and something chilling and heart-pounding. The tears in your eyes are the same tears that would’ve fallen if you had won. The same salt, the same water, the same happy pain. The thing about failure is that it’s not success, however, and one thing will tell you whether a team has won or lost—its silence.

_Once they got back to the locker room, they had tried to tolerate the silence before it simmered down into some kind of bittersweet acceptance._

_“Hey all you fuckers—yeah, you, Chowder, and you, Zimms—I just wanna say, that was a fucking awesome end to the season. Thank you guys for everything.” Shitty had stood up on one of the benches in his full gear._

_Jack didn’t even look up._

             “Practice?” he mumbles.

            Bitty shakes his head. “Not today.”

            _Jack had left with a quick “sorry”, but things seemed to be returning to the normalcy that had reigned before the game had started, the therapeutic (though some would argue otherwise) routine of putting things away. Nostalgic, sure, but there was something about that finality that felt like closure._

_“I’m going to go find Jack,” Bitty said to Shitty, who nodded solemnly._

_Bitty didn’t even have to walk very far to find him, like he had been expecting. Jack was partially sitting on the railing in front of the entrance, hands half tucked into his pockets, almost as if he had been waiting. Bitty stood behind him, and Jack didn’t turn around._

_“My dad saw that game.”_

_“I’m sure he was proud of how you did despite the circumstances.”_

_“Merde,” Jack trailed off. “I just wanted things to kind of. I don’t know. End well. For once, I guess.”_

_Bitty sat beside him. “Who said it didn’t end well? Who said failure is a bad thing?”_

He finally opens his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re here.”

            “Why would I leave?”

            _After the team trickled out and they made their trip back home, Jack tentatively knocked at Bitty’s door, asking to talk._

_“Bittle, I’ve been thinking.”_

_“Well, that’s certainly new,” But Bitty was smiling and the chirping makes Jack remember himself._

_“That’s not fair. I’m trying to have a serious conversation and you’re just chirping me…”_

_Bitty’s eyes cloud with worry when he sees the telltale signs of crying streaked under Jack’s eyes and in the shadows of his face. “Are you okay? Look, Jack, I know things can be…”_

_Jack’s breathing was shaky but he grit his teeth and sat on Bitty’s bed. “I’m not fragile anymore. I’m not like_ that _anymore, like… like, please, don’t look at me like_ they _do, I swear I’m not_ like that _.”_

_“Hey… of course not. And even if you were, there’s nothing wrong with that too.”_

_“That’s the thing I want to talk to you about, Bittle. I can’t stop thinking about how you said failure can be fine. You’re always like that. How did I… what did I do to ever deserve you, Bittle?”_

It seems like failure feels like success when Bitty kisses him again, and only 24 hours ago, they were prepping for the biggest game of Bitty’s college career.

Bitty pulls away reluctantly. “Oh dear, I haven’t even updated my followers yet about where I am… I bet they’re freaking out right now.”

            “Don’t mind them,” but his swats at Bitty’s phone are halfhearted, and there is so much time left in the world that it finally seems okay to take a little time once in a while.

            _Bitty can’t hear for all the blood that seems to be rushing to his face all at once. Jack continues obliviously. Bitty can also see the tips of his ears, bright red, like the flash of hockey jerseys around him only a few hours ago. “The thing about failure… is that it’s actually a lot like success.”_

_“Right, and…”_

_“And that’s always been the worst part for me. You know, just… even feeling what I_ could’ve _had, everything I_ could’ve _been, that’s the worst part of failing. But what you said earlier, no one’s ever said that to me._

 _“Everyone’s always said ‘it wasn’t that bad’, ‘do better next time’, ‘it was really close’, ‘ be better’. But I’ve never even thought—no one’s ever told me that it would be_ okay _, that it would be_ good _to fail._

 _“But I’ve thought about it, what you’ve said, and I think… I think you’re right, Bittle. Because if I hadn’t failed… failed to be first in the draft, and then not… gone through all of_ that _, well, I wouldn’t have gone to Samwell, and I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have met Shitty, or Ransom, or Holster, or… you, and God damn, but…_

_“If that’s what punishment and failure feels like, that’s all I want to do,” Jack had put his face in his hands, and his shoulders were shaking. “God… I’m going to miss y-you… so much.”_

_“Jack, may… may I kiss you?”_

Twitter was up, and Bitty scrolls up to the very top of the timeline, saving a few links about new recipes to try. “Jack, what should I say?”

            Jack stuck out his tongue. “What do you even say on Tweetchat anyways?”

            “Why did I ask you?” Bitty instead buries himself in Jack’s chest, staring down at his screen, feeling something surreal, something chilling, something dream-like, something heart-pounding.

            He’s never felt this way before. He can feel Jack’s calves with his toes as he entangles their legs. Finally, he finds the right words—word, for this feeling.

            **home.**

            He pauses, then sends it. How could he ever describe what failure—what success felt like, except in that one word? How could he ever be anywhere except where he was, a home of clear eyes and warm arms? This was home—a heartbeat, and zero seconds between the past and present, and a memory that tasted like a beautiful failure. This was home—right here, and Bittle presses his hand on Jack’s chest and feels his heartbeat, a cheerful doorbell and welcome-home pie, all laid out right there, in that early morning, within themselves.

            _“If these are the rewards that failure gives me, I guess I want to keep failing.”_

_“Guess you won’t be getting many rewards in the future then, huh?”_

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading y'all! Precious Zimms and Bittle are cinnamon buns too pure too good for this world. Love em. 
> 
> my tumblr is gamequeueb I would be glad to rant about omgcheckplease w y'all.
> 
> also as you can tell I definitely know a lot about hockey games & how they work .................lol


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